Home of the Day

Each week Alison Green, who also writes the "Ask a Manager" website, answers workplace and management questions from readers. Please comment or ask you own question by emailing her at alison@askamanager.org.

Question 1: My low-performing employee can’t take feedback

I have an employee who has been with our organization for six months. I’ve noticed that she begins crying whenever anyone points out an error. Or if someone informs me or her trainer of a mistake she made, she gets offended because they aren’t coming to her directly. If a coworker is joking with someone else (they are not racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. jokes) or if someone is supposedly “short” with someone else, she gets offended, even if the recipient was not offended.

I have also noticed she is only producing one-third of what the next lowest person is producing. When I asked what she needed from me to help with her production, she began crying and saying I pick on her. She has also accused me of favoritism because she is never given special projects to do, but everyone else gets the good projects. (I have given her projects, which are either not finished in a timely manner or she will not make any decision for herself, but will ask me or others every step of the way.) I have explained this to her, to no avail.

I talked to her old boss, who I am friends with, and she stated she was always a very sensitive person and very slow on the job, causing their department to backlog, but didn’t mention it when I checked her reference because she didn’t want to speak ill of her because she is a kind person. They always treated her with kid gloves, not allowing anyone to kid around or just having others fix her errors.

While my personal side knows she really needs her job, my supervisor side doesn’t think it’s right to have everyone to walk on eggshells and not be themselves or not give constructive criticism because one employee is extremely thin skinned. How do I handle an employee like this?

Answer:

Your primary job is to ensure work is done, not to coddle someone’s feelings. You need to give her clear and direct feedback on what needs to change, and that should include both her productivity level and her openness to feedback (because you can’t have someone on your team who is too sensitive to hear feedback and incorporate it into her work).

Productivity at one-third of your next-lower performer(!) is a dire enough performance issue that it’s highly likely that this won’t work out, so you should get her on a formal improvement plan ASAP. Give her a clear bar that she needs to meet (like x-amount of work done accurately in x-amount of time over the next four weeks), spell out what must change, and clearly explain that if she doesn’t meet those benchmarks, you’ll need to let her go (because that is the solution when someone is performing so poorly and doesn’t improve after direct feedback).

Frankly, you should also address the constant taking offense (saying something like, “we do joke around in our culture and, knowing that that’s not going to change, I need you to decide if that’s something you can comfortably live with”), but it sounds like she’s not going to be able to meet your performance standards anyway, so you might just address the performance piece of it rather than getting into the rest (on the assumption that that will end up being a quick and direct route to replacing her without getting into all the side issues).

Question 2: My new hire keeps cc’ing my manager on everything

I hired a team lead for my department, and now every single email she sends out, she copies my manager! I can understand she is excited in this new role, but I feel a sense of disrespect when she copies my manager on emails regarding suggestions for my team that she has not discussed with me first. When she sends out these emails, she addresses my manager first. I don’t think that’s right. I feel like she is trying to show off. And she thinks some ideas have not already been discussed before she was hired, but they have been. She would know if these ideas had already been talked about if she would discuss them with me first rather than copying my manager and suggesting things that have already been suggested. Also when there’s bad news like a missed deadline, she will not add him to that email string. She leaves that up to me.

I’m trying to find the right way to approach this as I do not want to seem like I am being a micromanager. It’s really bothering me. Am I just being over sensitive and should I let her copy away?

Answer:

You’re her manager, so when she’s behaving differently than you’d like, you need to let her know that — clearly, directly, and calmly. It’s perfectly reasonable to want her to follow a chain of command (and to keep your own manager from being bothered by ideas that have already been fielded in some way). That’s not micromanaging; that’s just adhering to a structure that exists for good reason.

Say something like this: “Let’s discuss things like this first before you loop Jane in. She and I both prefer to keep communications streamlined, and much of this will generally go through me first. Thank you.” You might also tell her what, if anything, it is good to cc your manager on, so that it’s clear that you’re not cutting off all communications in that direction.

If it continues after that, ask her directly why she’s continuing and tell her directly to stop.

Alison Green writes about workplace and management issues for The Business Journals. She writes the "Ask a Manager" website, dispensing advice on career, job search, and management issues. Previously she was the chief of staff for a national nonprofit lobbying organization, where she was responsible for day-to-day management. She lives in Washington, D.C.